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How Much Money do Programmers Really Make?
bigman2003 asks: "ADTmag.com recently released a list of average salaries for IT workers. Usually when I see these lists, I find out that I am grossly below the average salary. But this time I was very surprised to see that I am actually above the average! This is partly because of a recent raise, but it is also because the numbers quoted in this survey are lower than what I've seen the past from other surveys. This report quotes about $56,000 for the average application developer. I am a web developer (sure, laugh all you want) and I wanted to know specifically: How much are other web developers were making? And- How many hours a week does it take you to make it?"
Aerospace engineer. Spend 80% of my time programming simulations in C++. Fresh out of college make in excess of 50,000 plus much better than average benefits.
I was promoted and promoted, given many salary raises above and beyond, and many bonuses for work above and beyond. While I never asked for my six-figure salary, it was nice to have cuz I didn't have to worry much about financial woes.
Then a small company merged with ours, essentially swaggered in, a (allegedly) corrupt CEO (allegedly) cooked the books, or (allegedly) ordered them cooked, we went $35B in debt, our stock went from $54 to $2 (yes, 1/27th!), and the security unraveled.
No problem, that salary would come in handy now... until some British chick came in, one week on a conference call told us all to get approval before ordering office supplies and in a month or so we would look at our financial "situation".
Two weeks later 1/5 of us did the perp walk... Lost my job, lost the chance to finish the 3 years to full pension (after 21 years with this company). And, finally finding out not many companies want to interview someone that old, or making that much money... Doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter how good you are, if you can't even get the interview, salaries you made are only relevant in one way. Bitter? Yeah. Get over it? Yeah, but it's not easy.
A blessing in disguise, I'm now a completely independent software developer and stand to make more than I ever did working for d'man. But a lesson learned. Don't consider your salary in and of itself. Consider the ethics and environment of the company that may screw you (my sense is there aren't many out there anymore that won't.)
I found a cost of living calculator at Salary.com the other day, because I'm looking at moving within a year or two. I currently make a base salary of ~$55,000 as a web developer in Dallas, Texas. Here are some numbers of approximately what I would need to make in various cities across the U.S to be at the same level:
As expected, the cost of living is higher in the big cities, especially in California and New York State. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. The link is below if you want to try it yourself.
http://swz.salary.com/CostOfLivingWizard/layoutscr ipts/coll_start.asp
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
May 2004 Metropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Find your city, find your occupation.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm
Applicable Occupations:
15-1021 Computer Programmers
15-1031 Computer Software Engineers, Applications
15-1032 Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software
15-1041 Computer Support Specialists
15-1051 Computer Systems Analysts
15-1061 Database Administrators
15-1071 Network and Computer Systems Administrators
15-1081 Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts